Starting a Gear Review Website - C&C pls!

[waday]

Here are a few things I've noticed:

• I understand that you want to make money off of reviews. But, you need to make it more subtle. You specifically tell the reader that you're looking to profit off your review. After reading that, I'm no longer interested, and you've lost me as a reader. Seriously.
• Agree with @jaomul , you need an easy way for me to return to main review page. Don't count on users hitting their back button. If I get lost, I just close the window.
• You state that "No piece of gear is safe from my reviews," and yet you're only reviewing gear that you own. I very much doubt you'll own gear that would get a poor review from you. Why should I trust that you'll be providing unbiased reviews when you're only reviewing gear that you probably researched and determined was a best fit for you?
• This needs a lot of work before this goes live, IMO. This could easily be a couple week's worth of work. Before you really sink time into this, see if it's actually worth your time.
• Equipment isn't in alphabetical order. If you're planning to have lots of reviews, make it easy for viewers to find the equipment. If I have to search the site for more than a few seconds, I'm already gone as a reader. My mouse has a "back" button within half-an-inch from my thumb. I use it quite liberally when searching the web.
• It's clumsy to use and navigate. Sure, it works for a few items, but if you plan on having a good amount of items, it's very clumsy. Think drop-down list, or some way to sort by brand, or mount, or type, or something.
• Your section called "My Experience" has this stated: "This is the part where I talk about my own personal experience with the lens, in real life situations. If you're going to read any part of this review, let this section be it." Great... so, how is it going to work for me? You need to cater to the reader.
• I see all Nikon gear (except for the GoPro and the bags/filter). I use Olympus and Canon. Why am I coming to your site? If I want a review of only the equipment you own, I can get individual reviews on Amazon, B&H, and countless other sites. You need to have an in-depth review to keep me interested as a reader.
• You provide some tech specs, but then tell me to just look at someone else's site to view the full specs. By you telling me to click somewhere else, I'm already gone as a reader.
• If you're going to just list the specs, put them in a table. They're unreadable to me outside of a table.
• Your text needs to be much more professional, readable, and needs to keep me as a reader. For example, you say, "You can find this information anywhere on the Internet, so I'm just going to list the important stuff." First, yes, I can find it anywhere on the internet so maybe I'll go elsewhere, since you're not taking it seriously. Second, I don't see anything about battery life, which is pretty important to most people.
• Another example on text: "Feel free to peruse and then meet me down below for My Experience." You've got it all wrong. Why do you think that tech specs are always the last thing one reads on products? If I'm reading your site for the review, tech specs need to come LAST. In addition to listing them in a table, you could integrate the tech specs in your review, which would be much more helpful to me as a reader. "Oh, I didn't need to worry about battery life because I was able to use the camera for a full day of XX number of pictures before needing to be recharged." See, much more useful.
• Did you take the photos of the equipment? If not, I very much doubt Nikon would appreciate you making money off their photos.

While I appreciate your detailed feedback, half of your points are of things I've explained already and are moot points.

Alphabetical order is a good idea.

As for your comments on the review, it's unfinished. As I've said multiple times, I'm mostly looking for feedback on the layout right now.

As for the gear, as others have mentioned, I would like to try out equipment from all brands and budgets. Partnering with a camera shop would be ideal, but for now I'll review my own stuff and that can still help people who are interested in that gear.

My points, and many others, have not been addressed.

Members on here spent time out of our day and gave you honest and helpful feedback regarding layout (and much more) only to be met with you actively choosing to disregard our feedback with a "still in draft" excuse.

If you don't want comments on an unfinished page, don't ask for feedback on an unfinished page. If and when you finish your review site, I imagine we'd still be willing to provide comments, assuming you're looking for honest feedback to incorporate into your finished product.

 

[limr]

First line: "Here I share my experience with the various photography gear I've worked with." (Emphasis mine.)

And yet...

That deer and fox shot was not mine, unfortunately. That article was a guest post.

That's a problem.

I can't even tell if you gave credit to the guest reviewer/photographer, because none of the reviews actually open for me using a phone or Chromebook.

You said you haven't optimized for mobile devices yet. These days, you need to think about that as one of the first things you do.

 

[tirediron]

...You said you haven't optimized for mobile devices yet. These days, you need to think about that as one of the first things you do.

Can't overstate the importance of that. In fact, I would suggest that your priority should be coding for mobile devices and followed by optimizing for traditional platforms. I have to say though, I find it a bit odd as most web frameworks now automatically manage cross-platform optimization with pretty much no input required from the keyboard monkey.

 

[pixmedic]

...You said you haven't optimized for mobile devices yet. These days, you need to think about that as one of the first things you do.

Can't overstate the importance of that. In fact, I would suggest that your priority should be coding for mobile devices and followed by optimizing for traditional platforms. I have to say though, I find it a bit odd as most web frameworks now automatically manage cross-platform optimization with pretty much no input required from the keyboard monkey.

could just be wix.
we used smugmug pro and they automatically set up "optimized for mobile devices" when you make your page.
if wix isnt able to do so, i would suggest switching page hosts.

 

[tirediron]

...You said you haven't optimized for mobile devices yet. These days, you need to think about that as one of the first things you do.

Can't overstate the importance of that. In fact, I would suggest that your priority should be coding for mobile devices and followed by optimizing for traditional platforms. I have to say though, I find it a bit odd as most web frameworks now automatically manage cross-platform optimization with pretty much no input required from the keyboard monkey.

could just be wix.
we used smugmug pro and they automatically set up "optimized for mobile devices" when you make your page.
if wix isnt able to do so, i would suggest switching page hosts.

Huh... I actually thought Wix was a leader here...

 

[pixmedic]

...You said you haven't optimized for mobile devices yet. These days, you need to think about that as one of the first things you do.

Can't overstate the importance of that. In fact, I would suggest that your priority should be coding for mobile devices and followed by optimizing for traditional platforms. I have to say though, I find it a bit odd as most web frameworks now automatically manage cross-platform optimization with pretty much no input required from the keyboard monkey.

could just be wix.
we used smugmug pro and they automatically set up "optimized for mobile devices" when you make your page.
if wix isnt able to do so, i would suggest switching page hosts.

Huh... I actually thought Wix was a leader here...

Smugmug pro offered more at the time and was better set up. However, we used it to sell prints and show a portfolio/proofs. I don't have any idea which is better for this application.

Sent from my LG-H872 using Tapatalk

 

[Braineack]

wix is a host + templates. smugmug is geared towards photographer galleries with built in stores/printing presses.


wordpress would compete with wix -- and in fact, they seem to be a better deal...

 

[pixmedic]

wix is a host + templates. smugmug is geared towards photographer galleries with built in stores/printing presses.

my larger point was that if he cant get wix optimized for mobile devices (im sure it can be done, im just unfamiliar with wix) then staying with them is counterproductive to his goals.

 

[Braineack]

yeah yeah i like tangents, i was going to ask who coded the site, cause it's missing things like changing the cursor to the pointer on roll overs.

Nevermind mobile, it's not even responsive to desktop views... make the window small and you lose the white navigation (in the worlds worst spot) to the white background...


looks like youre using reactjs for the site... not sure that's the framework I'd go with it, but it still needs a responsive ui framework. even just the bootstrap css to get the grid/flex.

 

[pixmedic]

yeah yeah i like tangents, i was going to ask who coded the site, cause it's missing things like changing the cursor to the pointer on roll overs.

Nevermind mobile, it's not even responsive to desktop views... make the window small and you lose the white navigation (in the worlds worst spot) to the white background...


looks like youre using reactjs for the site... not sure that's the framework I'd go with it, but it still needs a responsive ui framework. even just the bootstrap css to get the grid/flex.

so what your saying is...wix sux....

 

[Braineack]

at least that template...

 

[Designer]

..I'm hoping I can get some feedback on the layout.

I presume the reviews page will be one of the choices at the top. I'm not a fan of center-justified unless in cases where it makes sense to do that. The introductory text block "reads small".

I dialed up KR's review page on the D750 just to have something to compare yours with. I like his better. Way better photographs, and the text is easier to read. I would like to have your explanation of how you think your layout is better. How is yours cleaner and better organized? If I can't see that yours is cleaner and better organized, then how would I be expected to perceive that, and then prefer your site to KR's?

KR posts his reviews in chronological order, and someone here mentioned alphabetical order, but frankly that would not help me, particularly if I didn't know the precise name of something. Logical groups is how I want to find stuff. It works quite well on other websites.

For everybody: Speaking of KR; why is everybody all negative on him? If people can't learn from a variety of sources, then their education will be thin, at best.

 

[waday]

with pretty much no input required from the keyboard monkey.

But, if you had a room full of monkeys randomly coding given an infinite length of time you'd eventually...



Just grow impatient and pay for a mobile-optimized template?

 

[pixmedic]

with pretty much no input required from the keyboard monkey.

But, if you had a room full of monkeys randomly coding given an infinite time you'd eventually...



Just grow impatient and pay for a mobile-optimized template?

but then wouldnt the monkeys own the site?

 

[Braineack]

For everybody: Speaking of KR; why is everybody all negative on him? If people can't learn from a variety of sources, then their education will be thin, at best.

some of his reviews are hardly reviews. I get annoyed from his extensive copy and pasting. but it's typically a good source for info.


things like this get old:

"
Manual Focus

Manual focus is swell, just grab the ring at any time. "